WND EXCLUSIVE

Pro-lifers to Obama: 'We will not comply'

Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially.

There are dozens of faith-led companies and organizations that have taken to the U.S. court system – so far mostly successfully – to fight back a requirement in Obamacare that they purchase health insurance policies that fund abortion or contraception including abortifacients – as that violates their faith.

Several appeals courts have agreed that the requirement cannot be enforced by the government until a final resolution on the dispute in a courtroom, maybe even the U.S. Supreme Court.

But there’s a new group of pro-life leaders who have cut to the end of the race and have signed a pledge explaining very simply that the government cannot force them to violate their consciences or forfeit their religious freedoms.

And they won’t be buying insurance that includes abortion, and won’t be paying any fines for refusing to participate in “the killing of innocent children.”

The statement promising peaceful civil disobedience already has collected dozens of signatures, including pro-life leaders such as Troy Newman of Operation Rescue and commentator Jill Stanek, whose experience with abortion dates to the time she was a nurse.

Organizers say that are asking people to consider very seriously the issues of signing, because of the potential for civil disobedience regarding Obamacare.

Newman, who heads Operation Rescue and spearheaded the project, said he has no time, money or ability to take the federal government on in an extended court battle over its plans to restrict his religious rights.

So he’s just reaching the conclusion immediately, without the need for intermediate steps.

“We’re not going to comply … with an unjust law that compels us to violate our consciences and religious liberties,” he told WND.

Further, the courts have proven untrustworthy by affirming Obamacare, and the intentions of the federal government are at least suspect in the situation.

“I do believe the intent of these mandates is to force American Christians into a position where they’re violating their religious conscience and scripture,” he said. Such actions “deaden your conscience,” he noted.

“Once you’re forced into a compliant position, once you’re subjugated, anything is possible for a totalitarian government. Despots don’t just move in one night and everybody capitulates. It’s one step at a time.”

The Obama strategy, he said, is to destroy any religious objections to abortion, and then to fund abortionists with billions of American tax dollars.

For him, it’s a line in the sand, however.

The document is called “A Pledge for the Preservation of Life and Liberty.”

It says:

Whereas, the founding documents of the United States and the principles espoused by our Founding Fathers affirm rights granted to the American citizenry based on freedom and human dignity; and

Whereas, the Declaration of Independence affirms that all humans receive the inalienable Right to Life from a Creator; and

Whereas, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees each citizen’s Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Speech; and

Whereas, the Constitution upholds the rights of citizens to live according to their conscience and moral dictates;

Whereas, many religions (and denominations and sects thereof) believe and teach, as a bedrock principle of their faith, that life begins at conception, and that complicity with abortion is unquestionably sinful and/or immoral ; and

Whereas, science, biology, and medicine confirm that, in sexual reproduction, each human being’s life begins at the beginning of fertilization, and

Whereas, under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) the United States Government compels every citizen, regardless of religious belief and/or moral belief, to purchase an ACA qualified health insurance policy; and

Whereas, the ACA, in most cases, will force those same citizens to pay for surgical and medical abortions, whether directly or indirectly, including drugs and devices that can end preborn human life; and

Whereas, abortion, including drugs and/or devices that can end a preborn human life, is not healthcare; pregnancy is not a disease to be treated with abortion; and, abortion is an elective, life-ending procedure that kills an innocent human life;

THEREFORE, we declare that we will not comply with any regulation of the ACA wherein we are forced to pay for abortion or forced to willfully participate in the killing of innocent children.

In practicality, this means we will not choose an insurance policy that contains abortion funding, whether directly or indirectly, even to the point of choosing no insurance, at all. Furthermore, we support any citizen who chooses to act in peaceful protest, including non-violent civil disobedience, as the government has no authority to force us, as free citizens, to violate our conscience or forfeit our religious freedoms.

A footnote explains that the Bible “states that God is the author of Life, physically creating a unique human in His image at the moment of conception.”